In the processing and preparation of parts of poultry and animals such as poultry thighs for sale and consumption in the retail market, such as in restaurants and grocery stores, it is highly desirable to package and serve the meat with the bones removed. Deboned meat can be easily cut-up and used in sandwiches or other food products where it is desirable to have the bone previously removed prior to cooking and serving.
An additional advantage of removing the bones from the meat during processing is that the bones do not have to be cooked with the meat, thereby conserving heat energy. Further, the removal of the bone prior to cooking allows the bone to be saved and used for bone meal or related products.
In the past, automated processes have been developed for the removal of meat from the bone of a poultry part, such as from the thigh bone of a poultry thigh, by engaging the bone with a scraping tool and scraping along the length of the bone. For example, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,672,000, 4,327,463 and 4,495,675 disclose deboning apparatus having two or more notched scraping blades which engage the bone. The blades are closed about the bone with the notches of the blades straddling the bone, and the bone is moved longitudinally through the blades. As the bone is moved through the notched blades, the blades progressively scrape the meat from the bone.
However, the raw meat has a tendency to cling tightly to the bone. Consequently, it is necessary for the scraper blades to engage the thigh bones in tight frictional contact to ensure the meat is completely scraped from the bone. A problem that arises with such prior art deboners is that the blades engaging the bone sometimes inadvertently gouge or chip and sometimes crack the bones as they scrape the bones. This creates bone fragments that can become lodged in the stripped meat, which creates a serious health risk to the ultimate consumer who expects that when he or she purchases a "boneless" product, it is indeed completely boneless.
Accordingly, it can be seen that it would be highly desirable to provide a method and apparatus for cleanly and completely scraping the meat from the thigh bone of poultry parts or similar animal parts without the risk of engaging the thigh bones and creating bone chips or fragments that can become lodged in the meat of the parts.